Category Archives: Science

491 FEEDINGS A DAY.

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Philip

491 FEEDINGS A DAY. Jack Sanders in his Birdnotes column in our local Darien Times has some facts that amazed me. House Wrens have been observed doing up to 491 feedings of their young in a day. Some species of … Continue reading →

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GREAT ARTISTS WITH BAD EYESIGHT.

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Philip

GREAT ARTISTS WITH BAD EYESIGHT. Capturing the depth of a three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface is the classic challenge for realistic painters. As reported in an article in Colloquy by Janelle Weaver, Margaret Livingstone, a Harvard professor … Continue reading →

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LEARNING TO UNDERSTAND SHADOWS.

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Philip

LEARNING TO UNDERSTAND SHADOWS. I posted here on how flatness has been valued in art since around the 1920′s, with depth and a sense of space being less valued. In this way, contemporary art has returned to what babies and … Continue reading →

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WHEN THE BLIND LEARN TO SEE.

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Philip

WHEN THE BLIND LEARN TO SEE. I read a wonderful book, PILGRIM AT TINKER’S CREEK, by Annie Dillard, soon after it came out in the 1970′s. In one chapter (link here), she recounted what cataract patients who had been blind … Continue reading →

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CONCEPTS AND WHAT WE SEE.

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Philip

CONCEPTS AND WHAT WE SEE. Adam Gopnik contrasts the “conceptual” and the “perceptual” and argues that the Bronzino example shows that in drawing (and also in looking) there is a tension between concepts and what the retina perceives. The retina … Continue reading →

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ONE, TWO, MANY—EVIDENCE FOR THE WHORFIANS.

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Philip

ONE, TWO, MANY—EVIDENCE FOR THE WHORFIANS. I was aware of claims that some languages do not have a word for numbers greater than two, so that counting becomes simply: “one, two, many…” This article from BBC News in 2004 reports … Continue reading →

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A LANGUAGE WITH NO WORDS FOR TIME.

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Philip

A LANGUAGE WITH NO WORDS FOR TIME. Bob Jordan called my attention to this article from BBC News which reports on research that concludes that the Amondowa tribe in the Amazon has no words for the abstract concepts of time. … Continue reading →

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STEAMPUNKING.

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Philip

STEAMPUNKING. I came across the term “steampunking’, and asked Annalisa if she knew anything about it. Of course, as with the Uncanny Valley, she did. This wikipedia article says that; “In general, the category includes any recent science fiction that … Continue reading →

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FINDINGS OF RESEARCH ON ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE.

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Philip

FINDINGS OF RESEARCH ON ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE. The headline of the Economist article summarizes research on alternative medicine: “Virtually all alternative medicine is bunk….”

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FINDINGS OF PLACEBO RESEARCH.

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Philip

FINDINGS OF PLACEBO RESEARCH. In this post I asked a number of questions about what studies on placebo effects had learned. (Annalisa had commented “I’m sure someone somewhere has done studies about good luck charms ‘working’ thanks to the placebo … Continue reading →

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